


en premier

by riverblujay



Series: sanders sides guard au [4]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Marching Band, Colorguard AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 20:16:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15202631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverblujay/pseuds/riverblujay
Summary: Was Virgil excited?Sure, he supposed. After all, it was their first competition. But he was also anxious; performing at football games and rehearsal was one thing, but this was what the end goal was. Competing. Against other guards. Who were all really, really good.or: the first competition. nerves ensue and rituals are born.





	en premier

**Author's Note:**

  * For [virmillion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/virmillion/gifts).



> so this is kinda an ""anniversary"" fic celebrating three months (on the 16) since my nerdy ass messaged them
> 
> EDIT (2/1/19): firstly, i changed the number of months listed above bc it was wrong. im a gay, im bad at math ok,,
> 
> second: im too lazy to fix it on tumblr, but i changed their instructor from remy to seth (aka september) bc i wrote like most of a whole other installment (hopefully coming soon) where remy was actually a college student. and it was easier to change a name a few times than to not post 1000+ words, so. yeah. 
> 
> also fixed a few small low key grammar things to clean up some sentences

Was Virgil excited? 

Sure, he supposed. After all, it was their first competition. But he was also anxious; performing at football games and rehearsal was one thing, but this was what the end goal was. Competing. Against other guards. Who were all really, really good. 

Virgil took another deep breath just as the guard bus (one of four the band were taking to the competition) passed over a pothole. And wasn’t that ironic- just as Virgil tried to get ahold of his life, something always came and snuck up on it again. He felt an elbow poke against his side as Patton brought him out of his musings.

“Virgil,” The other freshman whispered excitedly. “Can you believe it? It’s finally here.” Patton’s glasses (he didn’t wear contacts, even for guard. Logan was the same) only emphasized the light in his warm brown eyes. 

Virgil mumbled an agreement, and Patton, knowing that Virgil was just anxious and not being rude, went back to humming something to himself. Glancing up and down the aisles of the bus, he saw everyone else’s excitement to finally put out their whole show to what would supposedly be a “more respectful” audience. Virgil had also heard Thomas say in a speech (or whatever- something of the sort that was supposed to “prepare” the freshman for their first competition) that the atmosphere would be totally different than a game.

He shifted his attention to Roman and Logan in the seat next to them. “Are you nervous?” Virgil shyly asked the other half of the quartet. 

“I think, on some level, you might always have pre-show jitters,” Roman answered in a serious tone for once. “But honestly, Virgil, performing is  _ great. _ Why do you think I keep up with it?”

“Because you are- I believe the term is ‘extra?’”

“Logan!”

But the brevity had done its job: Logan’s accompanying smirk had caused Virgil to lose it, making him forget about his fear. He smiled, just the barest hint, a fracture in the face he made most of the day, at his friends. How had he gotten so lucky?

“I know!” Patton almost shouted, “we should totally have a handshake, or something we can all do before performing.”

“Like a good luck charm?” Virgil skeptically questioned as Roman said the line in unison with him, only with much more zeal.

“There might not be, realistically, enough space to come up with a handshake right now.”

“Oh, hush, we’ll do it later then,” Roman replied. His mischievous smirk only grew after he said it, though. “As for right now…” 

And suddenly Roman’s booming baritone filled the bus. 

“Let’s get down to business-”

Patton, catching on, joined in on the next lyric- “To defeat the Huns!”

Virgil could see even Logan smiling just a little as the rest of the guard slowly picked up on each line until all of them were singing delightedly (even Virgil). The song ended, and no one was sure what would come next. 

“Right now, he’s probably slow dancing,” someone in the middle of the bus began. Once again, they were all enthusiastically singing- practically shouting- the song that was often played in stretch block. Virgil could see the fire light up in Roman’s eyes as the other freshman got even more into the performance as they reached the chorus.

“I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped-up four-wheel drive,” Roman smirked as if he had actually keyed someone’s car. 

This song and metaphorical dance, to Virgil, was so silly, yet he couldn’t help but smile all the same.  _ How lucky, _ he thought to himself. 

Before Virgil even realized just how much time had passed as they continued the full guard sing-along, the buses arrived at the competition, which brought back his nerves with renewed vigor. As they were exited the bus and were walking to the equipment truck, Logan was the one to speak.

“Virgil,” Logan bluntly addressed him.

“Yeah?”

“I understand that you are nervous for the performance. Believe me,” Logan continued, his face sincere, “when I say that I am as well. However, just remember that you are not doing anything you haven’t done perfectly well before.” And with those parting words, Logan finished pulling his flags out of his flag bag and walked over to where the rest of the guard was standing.

Virgil hastily finished grabbing his equipment and carried the four pieces in cradle in his left arm. One thing in particular separated Virgil from the rest of the freshmen, the thing that made him so anxious for this show:

One of those pieces of equipment was a rifle.

 

\---

 

It was the first day of week two of band camp, and they were  _ finally  _ starting to put on drill. 

“Virgil,” Thomas called, passing over the coordinate sheet that held his drill for the season. He took the sheet and looked over it, catching the number in the corner.  _ 16. _

It was a fair bit of time before their captain called out Roman, Patton, and Logan’s names, and his friends’ numbers were in the twenties. Which meant-

_ No way, _ Virgil thought to himself.  _ That’s crazy. I’ve barely spun rifle at all. Why would they put  _ me _ on rifle line for the show? _

Virgil didn’t get the chance to question right then, since it was time to go back and start the (initially) slow process of learning drill. They managed to put on 8 pages before lunch, as they had started towards the middle of morning block.

“So,” Roman dragged out as the four once again walked to McDonald’s for lunch break, Logan per usual carrying his. “Who wants to bet our very own JD-lightful here is on rifle line?” he asked in a singsong tone.

“Ooh, I bet! Congrats, Virge,” Patton exclaimed, turning to Virgil on the last part.

“No way, it’s too crazy. I’ve barely even spun rifle. I’m a freshman!” He said, trying to keep the anxiety out of his voice. 

“Well, I suppose we will find out this afternoon. They did say they would break us down into groups once we were assigned our drill numbers, correct?” Logan replied.

Roman nodded.

“In any case,” Logan continued. “No matter what happens, I am sure that you will succeed.”

 

\---

 

They were all silent (as instructed to be) while walking from the truck to warm ups. Apparently, first would be body warm up, where they would stretch and practice any dance or movement they needed to, and then they would move to equipment warm up- where they could practice the tosses and work on their actual equipment. 

Virgil made sure to stay focused throughout, trying to breathe evenly.  _ It’s fine, you’ve practiced this stuff a thousand times before, it’ll be alright.  _

Each time Roman, Patton, or Logan flashed him a look of concern, Virgil managed to grimace back what could be called a smile. Or at least something of the sort in an attempt at reassurance. They reached body warm up and he tried to put all other thoughts out of his mind, losing himself in the comfortable pattern and routine of the stretches. The limited amount of time passed quickly, compared to the way the wait between body and equipment warm up dragged on after they had been released.

When they reached the equipment warm up area, their instructor (who insisted he be called by his first name, Seth), stated, “Okay, like normal, weapons on the left, flags on the right.” Virgil took his place in the middle columns of the block as the guard director continued by telling them to warm up their hands on their own. Like most of the weapon line, Virgil took out his rifle first and started doing drop spins on that before Seth would have the entire guard go over the ensemble flag sections as a group.

 

\---

 

“Okay, this year’s rifles are going to be…” Seth spouted off the list of names, and Virgil noticed it was mostly juniors and a few sophomores (as there were no seniors this year), but it was all people whose numbers came before his. 

“And finally, Virgil. If I called your name, stay here in the gym with me and grab your rifles, flags go out into the gym commons with Rebecca,” their instructor said, naming one of the sophomores. Virgil went to the spot on the wall where his flag bag was propped up and changed out his flag (they had just finished ensemble flag block) for the weapon as the rest of the freshman and a little more than half of the sophomores left for the area just outside the gym that they could spin in. 

“So,” Seth started to say. “The rifle isn’t going to be until the third movement, which won’t get put on until after school starts again, but I wanted to go ahead and set a weapon block. Sabre line is going to be numbers one through ten, so if that’s you grab your sabre as well. We’re going to be working on rifle technique today- sabres, we might split up and do some technique with you. We’ll probably start learning work for movement one tomorrow.”

The sabres went back to their flag bags and took out the sword-like piece of equipment. The rest of the rifles began setting the four-by-four block, Virgil being in the back right corner. 

He hadn’t been kidding when he had said to Patton, Logan, and Roman that he had barely spun rifle. But for some reason he was placed on it. In his first season.

Fucking fuck, he was probably going to die. Oh well. At least he had a little bit of time to practice and improve his technique before they started learning rifle work.

 

\---

 

By early September, the rifle felt so natural in his hands (after the hours and hours of additional practice Virgil put in, trying to practice the warm up and other technique even on the days of after school rehearsal) that he could probably do drop spins in his sleep. Maybe even double time. 

(If he was going to be on rifle line, he was going to be  _ good _ at it, dammit.)

Seth and the rest of the guard that spun weapon, and even the people that didn’t, had noticed his effort and their instructor obviously wasn’t regretting his decision. Hell, even Dr. Picani, the band director (though why someone would get a doctorate only to teach high school band was beyond him) had complimented Virgil on his skills.

So why did the thought of performing, the thought of actually spinning and tossing out on the field still fill him with dread?

_ It’s fine, you can totally do this, _ he told himself.  _ Everyone else believes in you. They wouldn’t have given you this opportunity if they didn’t think that you could do it. _

There was still that voice of doubt in the back of his mind, though. 

_ But what if you screw up? Everyone is  _ counting _ on you. _

No, he had practiced this work what felt like a thousand times. Yes, things might go wrong, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t fight his hardest to make sure he had a good run. 

As they ran through sections as an ensemble, Virgil made sure that all of his focus was on not only correctly doing the work but also the performance aspect. While he naturally had a “resting grumpy face,” as Roman called it, that didn’t mean he couldn’t fake a smile when needed. Finally, it was time to leave body warm up. 

Showtime.

 

\---

 

Virgil walked onto the field, not slow but not running (no one wants to get a time penalty, honestly) with his head held high. He was pretty sure that his parents were somewhere in the audience, but he just focused on setting his equipment in a timely manner and then moving to opening set. Holding his position, he heard the announcer begin the sequence (that, little did he know, would soon become familiar and comforting to him) of words said no matter where the competition was (though the exact words might differ from competition to competition):

“Drum major, is your band ready?”

The head drum major turned around, fancily removed her hat, and gave what looked like a complex salute to the announcer.

“You may take the field in competition.”

Pause. The drum major’s hands moving in familiar four-four time as the pit began to play. As Virgil watched and listened to keep time with the counts, he didn’t  _ lose himself, _ per se, but he did fully immerse himself in what he was doing, thoughts on nothing else but the moment. He performed more than he ever had before, while also focusing on doing the work in time and correctly, marching and dancing in unison, not to mention catching all of his tosses.

Time seemed to drag on and speed up simultaneously, especially during the third movement rifle work. Thankfully, while there were one or two close calls, Virgil didn’t drop his rifle. Before he knew it, but also after an eternity, he was frozen in the ending pose, and he couldn’t help but smile (and not just because he was supposed to).

Performing had been a rush, a mess of adrenaline and a little bit of anxiety, but now that he had done it Virgil knew that he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Afterwards, the band and color guard had some free time after changing out of their uniforms before awards and were told to sit together and watch other bands until the awards (though they were allowed to get something to eat from concessions. Virgil couldn’t help but be wowed at the other bands’ performances, and wondered how theirs would measure up.

Before he knew it, the drum majors had gone to line up at the field for the awards. The tension was insane as the announcer finally made their way up to their school’s class. There were six other schools. Six others to measure up to.

Seventh passed without their school’s name. Sixth. Fifth. Fourth. Still they remained unannounced. 

Third. 

There was dead silence in the stands, as some members even took each other’s hands in anticipation. The moment dragged on, the announcer’s voice trudging through the heaviness in the air. Virgil felt a hand clasp his, and sharply turned to see it was Roman, who was already squeezing Logan's hand tight. He clenched back, and passed the movement down to Patton on his other side, leaving the four freshmen with joined hands.

Finally,  _ finally _ \- second place- and it  _ wasn’t them. _

“And in first place, with a score of 83.89…” the announcer finished as Virgil and the rest of his teammates cheered.

 

\---

 

The bus ride back to the school wasn't quite like the ride to the competition. 

For one, most of the guard either wanted peace and quiet or the chance to nap. Virgil could hear a soft humming coming from Roman, something Disney, but it was nothing loud enough to disturb anyone else. Patton was slumped against Virgil, snoring lightly, and Logan was doing the same next to Roman. 

He thought back to the rush he had felt during the show, the pure and sincere  _ joy _ . Maybe that was what Roman had been talking about when he was attempting to explain exactly why he loved performing. 

After today, Virgil honestly didn't think that he could fully explain it either. 

  
Still, he smiled a little to himself. The fact that he might get to do this alongside his friends for another four years _ was _ something to smile about, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> check out [this verse](https://pastelvirgil.tumblr.com/tagged/guard%20au) on my [tumblr](https://pastelvirgil.tumblr.com)


End file.
